


We All Would Take The Latter

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Aftercare, Age Play, Anxiety, Background Arin Hanson/Suzy Berhow - Freeform, Background Dan Avidan/Suzy Berhow, Crying, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hair-pulling, M/M, Middle Play, Spanking, Stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:02:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: Dan needs to let off some steam.





	We All Would Take The Latter

Dan was on edge.

Not the fun kind of on edge either, but the kind of... well, on edge.

His skin was too tight, his head hurt, everything seemed to be getting under his skin. 

Which was still too tight.

It was like having crumbs under a latex bodysuit.

_That_ mental image was enough to make Dan snicker, and Arin, who was sitting across from him at the table in the Grump space, raised an eyebrow.

"You okay, dude?"

"Yeah," Dan said, and he put a smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?" 

Arin's expression was worried.

Dan tried not to let his face fall into a scowl, keeping the smile on his face.

"I'm sure," he told Arin. "Okay?" 

"Okay," said Arin. "Just, uh... you're holding your spoon so hard that your knuckles are white."

"Am I?"

Dan looked down at the spoon in his hand, and indeed, his hand was shaking, and his knuckles were white.

"Far be it from me to... overstep my boundaries," said Arin, his tone cautious, "but do you think that maybe you need a break of some kind?"

"I'm fine," Dan said, trying to keep his tone firm.

Why was his head shouting at him as much as it was?

It wasn't as if life had been particularly stressful as of late.

... no, that was a lie.

He'd had to re-record a bunch of stuff for the new album, and Arin had been busy on tour, Suzy had been sick, and Brian had been busy, and that had kind of left Dan on his own, which he wasn't always the best at....

Dan sighed, and he rested his elbows on the table, putting his face in his long fingered hands, his breath going slow.

"I'm sorry," he told Arin, his voice rough. "I've just been... you know, things have been stressful. You know."

"Yeah," said Arin, and he rested his hand on Dan's knee. "I'm sorry you're stressed out, bro. You want me to come over tonight?"

"Nah," said Dan. "Isn't Suzy still sick?"

"She's getting better," said Arin. "Anyway, she's a big girl. She'll be okay."

"Still," said Dan. "She's your wife, dude."

"She's also your girlfriend," said Arin. "And I'm your boyfriend."

"Don't worry about it," Dan said again, and he tried to sound like his usual chill, cool guy.

Arin patted Dan on the knee.

"How about I come over sometime this week? We can do something fun."

"What kinda fun?"

"Well... any kind of fun that you'd like," said Arin. "You're the one who seems to need the chill out."

"Are you saying I'm coming off as neurotic or something?"

Dan was clenching his jaw.

He tried to relax it. 

Why was he even so damn tense?

He'd been going on a breakneck schedule for most of this chunk of his adult life - why was he so bothered by it now?

Maybe he was just pushing himself too hard.

But fuck it

What was the point of dating someone like Arin, if not for the chance to be honest about shit, including his own feelings?

"I'm... I'm really tense," he told Arin. 

"I can tell," said Arin. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you need a back rub or anything like that," said Arin. "Would that help?"

"I don't fuckin' know," Dan said, and he sighed. "I'm... everything feels too... much. I feel like I'm gonna fly off the handle if I'm not that careful, and I don't want to be that person. The person who just flies off of the handle, you know?"

"Right," said Arin. "I mean, if it helps, sometimes you end up in those kinds of moods. It's not your job to be perfect all the time or whatever."

"It's my job to be friendly and funny on Grumps," Dan said, and he tried not to sound as overwhelmed as he felt.

... maybe he had been burning the lamp at both ends for a bit too long.

He hadn't been aware he could do that. 

Well, no, he knew he could get burn out - when they had been filming Good Game, he'd been an absolute wreck, but this felt... different.

Maybe because he was on his own with all this stress, and not just him and Arin both suffering together, almost with camaraderie.

Not just Dan, being an annoying drama queen or... something.

But Arin patted him on the knee again, and Dan yawned so widely that his jaw cracked.

"How about... how about I go film a thing with Matt and Ryan, and then you can have a nap and then I can give you a back rub?"

"I should be Grumping," said Dan, and shame was beating through him like a second heartbeat. "It's my job."

"You can't do a good job if you're grumpy and tired," said Arin, and he was using a tone of authority.

... why was Dan's face turning so red?

At the end of the day, Arin was Dan's boss, and Arin had always been a bit bossy about this kind of thing.

So why was Dan so nervous?

This was all fucking weird.

Was his subconscious doing... something or other to him?

"Okay," Dan said, and he sighed, leaning further forward, staring at his soup. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry about?"

"Being a wreck," Dan said. "Would you rather I just went home, so you have the free room?"

Arin shot Dan a worried look. 

"I don't want you to feel like I'm kicking you out because you're in a bad mood or whatever," said Arin, and he did look genuinely worried, which was unexpected.

Dan's bad mood broke, just a bit, a beam of light shooting through the murky clouds.

"It's okay," he told Arin, and he took one of Arin's hands in his own, kissing the back of Arin's hand. "I'm sorry." 

"It's okay," said Arin, and he squeezed Dan's fingers. "I mean it. Go home. Sleep, eat, jerk off, watch Game of Thrones, do whatever."

"Is that an official prescription?"

"I'm not exactly a doctor," Arin pointed out, but he was grinning. "But if I _was_ a doctor, I would totally prescribe that to you."

Dan squeezed Arin's fingers again, and he rubbed his eyes.

The shame was beating through him, but fuck it. 

He was tired, and he was irritable, and he'd already filmed about six hours worth of content today.

Maybe he was just burnt out. 

He could live with being exhausted, if he had a chance to recharge. 

That was how it worked, right?

You overdid it, and then you went home and slept it off.

He kissed Arin on the mouth, a soft, sweet kiss, and then he was making his way to his car, driving home.

"Take care of yourself," Arin told Dan, his voice soft, his eyes softer. "You look like death warmed over."

"Yeah, yeah," Dan said, and he kissed Arin again, because he could, then left the office.

_This isn't running away_ , he told himself firmly. _This is just managing myself, like anything else._

* * * 

Dan was grinding his teeth by the time he got back to his apartment. 

He wasn't usually one for road rage - he liked to think he was a pretty chill dude, most of the time.

But he was so mad that his knuckles were turning white on the wheel, and he actually shot someone the bird when they cut him off, which wasn't something that he had ever done before.

But fuck it.

He was mad.

He needed to not be mad.

He didn't like being mad. 

He didn't like being a guy who was mad - both from the stereotype of people from Jersey being belligerent assholes, and because... well, because being angry all the time just wasn't... enjoyable.

He groaned, and he slumped back into his seat, as the traffic barely moved.

He needed to relax.

He needed to seriously relax - the kind of relaxation that would leave him a melted puddle on his bed, that would help him blow off all of this steam.

Maybe he needed a good masturbation session - or maybe he should have just asked Arin for that back rub after all. 

He would have killed for a good back rub right now.

Urrrrgh.

He was such a fucking loser, and he was too fucking stressed out.

... wow, he sounded like some kind of emo poem.

Dan cracked a smile in spite of himself, as the cars began to move, and he was leaning back in his seat, because... well, what was the point of being an adult, if not to make fun of yourself when you were being an over dramatic little shit?

He sighed, a bit of the tension leaving his shoulders, and he continued to relax, at least a little bit.

He was going to be fine. 

He'd order sushi, watch some dumb action movie, have a good jack off session... it would all be good.

* * * 

Dan's key broke in the lock.

He stared down at his hand, stared at the lock, stared at his hand again.

There was the jagged piece of metal - he could probably stab someone with it, if he tried hard enough.

Dan groaned, pressing his forehead against the door.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

His mood, which had slowly started to rise up again, plummeted like an airplane made of rock. 

Okay.

He could do this.

He was an adult.

He knew how to call a locksmith, and he knew how to deal with this kind of bullshit. 

He just needed to... he just needed to call the locksmith.

* * *

Dan sat outside his apartment for an hour and a half, pausing to charge his phone for a little bit at a nearby Starbucks, and then he was sitting by his front door as a guy wearing pants that drooped down too low took apart his front door.

"This kinda shit just happens sometimes," said the locksmith, and he was making sympathetic noises.

He smelled so strongly of cigarettes that he must have turned the scent into some kind of cologne and just... bathed in it.

It was gross.

But the guy was friendly, and he was sympathetic even as he gave Dan the bill, and let Dan back into his own house.

Dan was tired, but he tipped the guy, and then he collapsed onto his couch, covering his face with both hands.

Maybe he needed to skip the sushi, and just stay inside before anything else went wrong.

It would be okay.

It had to be okay.

Shit didn't just keep happening and happening for no reason.

He curled up on his couch, his head on a throw pillow, clutching a different pillow to his chest, his eyes sliding shut.

Maybe he just needed a nap - sometimes everything looked better after he'd had a nice nap.

Although if he napped now, he'd have trouble sleeping by the time it was time to get to actual sleep.

Dan groaned, covering his face with both hands.

Being a responsible adult was hard.

It sucked.

Everything sucked.

Dan snorted at his own hyperbole and he covered his face with both hands.

_My evening is not going up,_ he texted Arin and Suzy.

_What’s up?_

Suzy’s response as prompt - she must have been bored, but she usually was when she was stuck at home sick.

So Dan told her about his evening.

_That really sucks,_ she responded with. _You should do something nice for yourself._

_Like what?_

_Eat good food, maybe take a bath?_

_Baths usually make me feel better,_ Dan agreed. _Thanks, daring._

He got a little heart emoji back.

Dan sat up, and he smiled in spite of himself.

Okay.

He could do this.

He would have a delicious dinner of sushi, and then he would take a hot bath, letting his troubles melt away, as the heat melted away the tension in his muscles.

He could do this.

He would relax so hard that his fucking children would be chill.

* * *

The sushi wasn’t very good.

He hadn’t even known that was an option - that someone could make sushi that managed to taste like gefilte fish. 

It wasn’t even that he necessarily _disliked_ gefilte fish. 

It was just that… well, if he wanted sushi, he wanted sushi.

If he wanted gefilte fish, he’d have gotten that.

Dan sighed, but he ate his dinner anyway, because you don’t just throw out food if it’s edible, even if it isn’t very good. 

* * *

Dan took a bath.

It was a good bath - he turned the lights down, so that the only light he got was the dimness from the setting sun, and then he was up to his neck in hot water.

This was… this was nice.

The heat was soaking into his bones, leaving him loose and relaxed, and his eyes were half shut.

This was more comfortable than he had a right to be.

If anyone had a right to be comfortable.

Maybe he was overthinking this.

Dan groaned, sank down under the water, until only the tip of his nose was poking out.

He kept his eyes shut, and he let himself soak in the hot water.

He needed… he needed a good cry. 

It was easy to see that, as his body floated in the water, and his mind floated a few feet to the left. 

There was a lump in his throat, a tension in his temples that was pulling like he’d tied his hair back too tightly.

The lump in his throat was thick, and he thought, abstractly, about things that made him sad, but… nothing.

He needed a reason to cry.

He didn’t really have one, did he?

Maybe he could meditate away the stress.

He’d done it before. 

* * *

An hour later, and he was soggy, wrinkled, and still on the edge of tears.

Maybe he needed something that would really make him cry.

But what would make him cry?

Hmm.

Why couldn’t he be normal?

Eh shuddered, his toes curling in the water, and he relaxed into the side of the tub, as the water soaked into him.

He didn’t know what, exactly, he was thinking - he was dissociating pretty strongly at this point. 

But the water was still warm, and he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

Maybe he’d talk to Arin about this.

* * * 

“Aw, dude, you’re still looking all tense,” said Arin, when Dan came into work the next day.

“Gee, thanks,” Dan snapped, and immediately regretted it. “Fuck. Sorry. I’m being a douche.”

“Only a little bit,” said Arin, as he fiddled with various cords to get the television ready for their episode of Grumps today. “You wanna talk about it?”

“It’s… okay. This is embarrassing as hell, you promise not to judge me?”

“I don’t really have a leg to stand on if I’m judging you,” said Arin, stretching, his back cracking. “C’mon. Tell me.”

“You ever, like, really need to cry, but you don’t have any crying in you for some reason?”

“Yeah,” said Arin. “Usually when I’m in that kinda mood I’ll watch, like, a super depressing movie, or read something that will make me cry.”

“I don’t know if I have anything like that,” Dan said, his tone glum and frustrated.

“Got any sad music?”

“Not that’d get me all… you know.” Dan covered his face with both hands. “I feel like I need a full on ugly cry.”

“When I’m in a mood like that, I usually get Suzy to beat the shit out of me,” said Arin, as if that was just a thing that people said. 

“What?”

“I get Suzy to beat me up,” said Arin. 

“What, like, in a dominatrix kinda way?”

“Sometimes,” said Arin. “Sometimes, it’s just, you know, I lie on my stomach and she kicks my thighs and my everything else and it hurts like hell, but I feel better afterwards.”

“Huh,” said Dan.

“Do you want me to ask her to beat you up?”

“If I want her to beat me up, I’ll ask her,” said Dan, and then he sighed. 

He was still snappy.

Arin was looking at him sidelong, his mouth turned down.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said, and he made vague hand gestures. “I’ve been… you know, stressed, and I feel like I’ve got this big… ball of something or other inside of me, in my brain and my gut and everything. So it’s making everything… meaner. It’s making me meaner. I don’t like being mean.”

“Right,” said Arin, and he made a sympathetic noise.

“Still,” said Dan. “It’s not fair that I’m being a cunt to you.”

Arin patted Dan on the shoulder.

“I appreciate the apology,” he told Dan.

“Would… would you ever wanna beat me up?”

“What, like, full on beating on you?”

“Yeah.”

Arin looked faintly uncomfortable.

“I… I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid I’d fuckin’...break you, if I went at you the way Suzy goes at me.”

“Right,” said Dan. 

“Although,” Arin added, “if you just wanted me to, like, spank you or something like that, I’d be okay with that.”

“What, like, you’ve been a very naughty boy kinda spanking?”

Dan was trying not to start giggling - the whole image of it was pretty… ridiculous, come to think of it.

“Sure,” said Arin, and he looked… totally cool, totally relaxed. 

Like this wasn’t some fraught, complicated, weird thing.

Like this was just… the kind of shit that people did. 

God, when had he got so caught up in this kind of depravity?

Was it even depravity, or was he just being neurotic?

“Dude,” said Arin, “your face just went on a whole journey. Care to catch me up on it?”

“Huh?”

“Your face. You looked like you just went on some kind of fuckin’... journey,” said Arin.

He looked worried.

“I’ll be fine,” Dan said, and then he sighed. 

No. 

Okay. 

He was going to be honest - he’d promised himself that he’d be more honest with Arin. 

“I’m not… I’m not fine right now,” he told Arin, “but I’m still figuring out whatever it is that’s bothering me, and it’s gonna… you know, I want to work it out to a thing that makes sense before I tell you what it is.”

“Okay,” said Arin. “Although if it doesn’t make sense to you, we can, like, try to make it make sense.”

“I at least try to pretend to be a grown ass man,” said Dan. “Let me attempt to work my own problems out.”

“It doesn’t make you any less of a grown ass man to have issues with sorting out your problems,” Arin pointed out. “God knows most people have trouble with that shit.”

“Yeah, but… it’s the principle of the thing, at least a little bit,” said Dan. “But I’ll get back to you about it, okay? I promise.”

“Okay.”

Dan took one of Arin’s hands, kissed the back of it, then the palm, pressing it against his cheek.

“You’re too fuckin’ good for me,” he told Arin.

“I do my best,” Arin said, but he was blushing, clearly pleased.

* * * 

They did the Grump session. 

In a weird way, it helped.

Dan wasn’t trying to dissect the giant owl pellet that was his own emotions, he was just trying to be funny, and if there was one thing that Dan was good at, it was being funny.

At least, he liked to think he was good at being funny.

But he was especially funny today - he was making _himself_ laugh, although some of that might have just been some form of hysteria, which was… definitely a thing that happened sometimes.

He managed to get them cackling through almost four hours worth of Grumps, until the two of them were gasping for breath, leaning against each other.

“Next time on Game Grumps,” Dan said, still giggling, “Arin remembers the actual order that words are supposed to go in, and doesn’t just fuckin’... scattershot them!”

“Doesn’t scattershot mean something else?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” said Dan. “Isn’t it when you stick something into a shotgun and it just kinda… scatters?”

“No, it’s a kind of graph, I think.”

“Listen to mister fancy pants here, knowing all these _definitions_ and shit,” Dan said, putting on a silly voice, and then they were shutting off the microphones, and the two of them made eye contact, and started cackling again. 

* * *

“I think… I think that, like, I feel weird just asking you for a spanking or whatever,” Dan said, when he and Arin were both sitting in Arin’s office, eating takeout Thai.

This was better than the sushi that Dan had eaten the other night, thank fuck.

Arin turned a little pink, and he glanced at the door, but it was closed.

There was something gratifying, to see Arin being less than blase about something as… well, embarrassing as this. 

Was this embarrassing?

Or just lewd?

“So you feel weird asking me for a spanking?”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “LIke, if I want it to mean anything, I gotta earn it.”

“You just wanna try to piss me off enough to get a spanking?”

Arin looked faintly amused. 

“Possibly,” said Dan. 

“I don’t think you could do that,” said Arin.

“Really? You don’t think I can piss you off to the point of just… hauling me up and beating me up?”

“I don’t just beat people up,” Arin said, and he looked faintly annoyed. “Dude, really?”

“I mean,” Dan said, making a vague hand gesture, “if you knew that I was trying to rile you up, me riling you up might come across as some kind of me asking you for… you know?”

“That was, like, the most roundabout way of saying “please spank me” that I’ve ever heard,” said Arin. 

“Well, I mean,” said Dan, making a vague hand motion, “it’s hard to just ask for it. Then it doesn’t feel… real.”

“I’m not going to hurt you when I’m mad,” Arin said. “I’d never hurt you while I was mad. And if you want to rile me up, then I’m gonna ask for a whole role playing scenario, because that just… you know, separates it from reality.”

“You’d be bothered by that? The lack of… separation?”

“Oh yeah,” said Arin. “I’ve got this whole… you know, I know people think that I’m just a big raging asshole, but I’m trying not to be that person. I don’t even like _pretending_ to be that person, it’s why I’ve been cutting it back in class.”

Dan nodded. 

“That makes sense,” he said, and there was something like shame curdling in his stomach. 

Why was he ashamed?

Was he asking for Arin to go out of his comfort zone?

… maybe he was doing something wrong.

“Dan,” Arin said, his tone sharp, “you’re disappearing back into your head again. Calm down.”

“Sorry,” said Dan, and he was flushing.

“Why?”

“Because… I’m fucking it all up,” Dan mumbled.

Arin made an annoyed noise, stood up, walked around his desk, and knelt down in front of Dan, so that they were eye to eye. He put his hands on either side of Dan’s face, and he pressed his forehead against Dan’s. 

“Dude,” Arin said, from the depths of his soul, “It’s okay. Chill.”

“Chill?”

“Chill.”

“... okay.”

“We’ll do a thing,” Arin told Dan. “It’ll be great. You can have all those feelings you’re trying to have. It’ll be the emotional equivalent of a really good shit.”

Dan, still caught in the moment, made a face.

“Arin,” he said, “you need to work on your metaphors.”

“But I’m not wrong!”

“I mean, you’re not, but still.” 

Arin kissed Dan on the mouth, a brush of lips on lips. 

“Regardless to how much you hate my metaphors,” said Arin, “I’ve got a scene idea. You wanna hear it?”

“Okay.” 

* * *

And now… Dan was getting dressed.

Full on dressed. 

He was putting on eyeliner.

He barely even knew how to put on eyeliner, but he was putting it on anyway.

Theoretically, he could have asked Suzy to help him with it, but… it felt weird to ask her for something, when she wouldn’t be in the scene.

So he stared himself in the mirror, manipulating his face, applying the eyeliner, then gelling his hair.

It was all part of an act - all of it, down to the jeans (they were black and ripped, instead of the regular denim color and ripped), to the Black Sabbath t-shirt (where had he even dug that up? It had been hanging in the back of his closet for who even knew how long), to the leather jacket.

He looked… well, he looked fucking ridiculous, truth be told, but fuck it. 

He was going to be an annoying little cunt, so he might as well embrace it, right?

So he all but swaggered into the living room, throwing himself onto the couch, putting his feet up on the table.

He was dissociating, just a bit, and that was okay.

There was something nice, to be watching himself like this.

And then Arin came in.

Arin, who had tied his hair back, and now looked a bit more respectable than he usually did. 

He was saying something to Dan.

Dan wasn’t really paying attention.

“I said,” Arin said, his voice a little quieter this time, “why are you still here?”

“Where else would I be?”

Dan made a big show out of stretching out some more, as indolent as a house cat.

“School,” Arin said. “We talked about this.”

“I don’t care about school,” Dan said, keeping his tone calm.

“Well, as long as you live under my roof, you’re going to school.”

“It’s not just your roof,” said Dan.

“Suzy agrees with me,” said Arin.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

Dan wasn’t even having to be particularly obnoxious - he just… let himself respond in a way that was annoying. 

No overacting, nothing like that, just himself, being a bit of a jerk.

Arin was getting more and more agitated.

“If you keep back talking to me,” Arin said, “I’m going to make you pay for it.”

“How are you gonna make me pay? I’m broke, remember? You were complaining about the fact that I don’t - ow!”

Arin just… reached over, grabbed a handful of Dan’s hair, twisting it around his fist, and he more or less dragged Dan into the bedroom. 

“If you’re not gonna act like a fucking adult, I’m not gonna treat you like one,” said Arin, and then he was… he was just pulling the fucking jacket, and Dan had forgotten just how _strong_ Arin could be, when he wanted to be, as he just… grabbed Dan’s waistband, shoving Dan’s pants down around his knees.

“Fucking seriously?”

“What?!”

Dan was flushing, and his cock was hard.

“You fucking weirdo,” Arin said, and then he sat on the bed, manhandling Dan onto it with him, until Dan was just draped across Arin’s solid thighs, Arin’s knees pressing into Dan’s ribs.

“You’re a fucking brat, and you know what happens to brats?”

“Fuck off,” Dan spat, and was a bit surprised that he actually meant it.

And that he was afraid.

Actually afraid - his cock was hard, pressing against Arin’s thigh, but his heart was thundering in his ears, 

He was afraid of the pain, he _wanted_ the pain, he was… he didn’t know.

The inside of his head was screaming at itself, a cacophony of parenthesis and explanations and telling him how he was doing it wrong.

What was it?

Who fucking knew?

But it was reaching some kind of crescendo, and then… then the hand landed on his ass.

He jerked forward, making a surprised noise.

“Now,” said Arin, and his elbow was digging into Dan’s lower back, and Dan wriggled, his hips grinding his cock against Arin’s thigh. “You’re gonna tell me what you’re sorry for.”

“I’m not sorry,” Dan said, setting his lip in a pout, and then he was crying out, as Arin hit him again.

Hit him harder, and Dan began to squirm, because… okay, this was painful. 

This was more painful than it had any fucking right to be, but Arin was… Arin was hitting him hard, and Dan was trying not to make too much noise, but it was… it was painful, it was way more painful than it had any right to be.

And then Arin was just… yanking Dan’s boxers down, and Dan’s bare skin was being hit with… with something.

What was it?

Dan risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw that Arin was wielding a hairbrush.

Oh god.

It hurt, it hurt so badly, and the guilt and the stress were beginning to boil out of him, and he was… he was crying.

Dan was crying - he was ugly crying, and it was streaming out of his nose, out of his eyes. He was letting out great, wracking sobs, his whole body shaking, and he was babbling… what was he even say?

He couldn’t keep track of it - apologies, bits and pieces of things, apologizing for being a horrible person, for being horny, for being ugly, for not being what it was that Arin needed or wanted, for not being anything that the world wanted, for who even knew what - the word just flowed out of his mouth, like so much vomit.

And then Arin was lifting him up, he was being held in Arin’s lap, and he was crying into Arin’s shoulder, and Arin was rubbing his back, making soothing noises.

“I know, “ Arin said. “I know. It’s had. It’s okay. Let it out, it’s okay….”

And Dan kept crying, and his cock stayed hard, the bastard, until he was wrapping his own hand around it, and he was sobbing into Arin’s shirt and stroking his cock in the same fucking movement, until Arin was wrapping a hand around his, and the both of them were jerking him off.

Dan came in a gush of tears, and his head was quiet, his head was empty, and he was sticky with tears and cum, but… fuck it.

He rested his forehead against Arin’s temple, giving the occasional sniff.

“You okay, buddy?”

Arin’s voice was quiet.

Dan nodded, and he gave another sniff.

“You need anything?”

“I should probably drink some water,” Dan said, his voice thick. “But… in a sec.”

“Do you feel any better?”

“Yeah. I think… you did a good job.”

“Was I too mean?”

Arin sounded anxious.

“No,” Dan said, and he kept his voice quiet and stuffy. “No, you did great.”

“Okay, good,” said Arin. 

“Do you want me to blow you or anything like that?”

“No,” said Arin. “I’m going to keep holding you for a little bit, and then we’ll go from there.”

Arin pulled back, looking at Dan’s face, and he grinned.

“Your eyeliner has run so badly. Holy shit.”

“Sorry,” said Dan, and he meant it, too. 

A little pebble of guilt shifted inside of him.

“Don’t be,” said Arin. “It’s hot. If we’re gonna do this again, I wanna put you in mascara.”

… oh.

That was an interesting idea.

“Okay,” Dan said, his voice thick.

Arin kissed him noisily on the temple - Dan’s ear rang.

“It’s okay,” he told Dan. “I mean it. It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay. It’s all great. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” said Arin, and he gave Dan another kiss.

Dan sighed, and he leaned into Arin, letting the relaxation sink into his bones like heat.

**Author's Note:**

> Like this fic? Want me to write you something like it, or something completely different?
> 
> Come talk to me on my tumblr, theseusinthemaze.tumblr.com!


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